PETROL, SUGAR, AND NOW MILK: WHY THE INDIAN WALLET JUST CAN'T SEEM TO CATCH A BREAK.
In early 2026, scientists around the world observed the first warning signs of a potentially very strong El Niño—a Pacific Ocean phenomenon that had the power to disrupt weather patterns and send ripples through economies worldwide.
El Niño, by definition, is the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). A natural climatic pattern shift where trade winds in the Pacific Ocean weaken, causing warm waters to move eastwards towards the Americas instead of hitting near Asia. It causes the sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific to rise, triggering a cascade of climatic changes worldwide, such as increased rainfall across parts of the Americas and severe drought conditions in the regions of Asia.
To officially declare an El Niño event by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, the temperature rise in the Pacific Ocean has to be around 0.5 degrees Celsius. The reason why we're talking about a more powerful event this year is because we're seeing weather models indicating that we might expect a 2 to 3 degrees Celsius increase in temperature in the Pacific Ocean.
Thus, the added prefix of 'super' in the word 'super El Niño ’-the moniker being used for this year’s exceptionally strong El Niño event in the media.
And there comes India, the sixth-largest economy in the world, with 42% of the population still dependent on agriculture for a living; it was believed to experience the hardest blow of this phenomenon. And now, everyday Indians are finally feeling that financial squeeze.
First, let's begin with the essentials: our groceries.
Sugarcane is one of the most water-intensive crops grown in the country, and India is on the list of the largest producers and consumers of sugar in the world.
With El Niño bringing a weak and low monsoon, the June rainfall was observed to be 40% below normal, according to India Meteorological Department (IMD) data.
For sugarcane farmers in states such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka, who still rely solely on rainfall for irrigation, this means much lower sugarcane production and less sugar supply in the market. Thereby, forcing sugar prices to rise.
Adding fuel to this fire is the recently introduced ethanol blending program in India. As sugarcane is the source of both sugar and ethanol, when more of it is used to produce ethanol, less of it becomes available for daily consumer use, exacerbating sugar prices even further, from Rs. 49 at the end of July to Rs. 65 per kg at the end of August.
And thus, for the first time in a decade, India has begun importing sugar.
Moving to the Indian dairy sector, which is often celebrated as the world’s largest, also seems no stranger to the impact of El Niño. Livestock feed constitutes nearly 60-70 percent of the cost of milk production. Green fodder crops such as maize, sorghum, bajra, and cowpea rely heavily on timely monsoon rainfall during sowing and vegetative growth. And with this year’s erratic rainfall and extended dry spells, fodder availability declined long before milk production did, creating a powerful inflationary effect on all milk and milk products sold in the country.
In Mumbai, the Bombay Milk Producers Association raised wholesale milk prices by ₹9 per litre, from ₹93 to ₹102, citing higher feed and cattle-maintenance costs. And if predictions prove true, retail prices for directly farm-supplied milk are expected to approach ₹110 per litre just ahead of the festive season.
If all this seems concerning enough, how can we forget the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which has been continuously adding additional burdens on households over the past year? Experienced by millions of people, disruptions to oil supplies and shipping by the war have driven up crude and petrol prices, and their ripple effect on supply chains has made food, essentials, and everyday goods increasingly expensive for consumers.
Currently, with new predictions being made continuously about the progression of El Niño, it's predicted that a period of respite may never arrive. Usually, when an El Niño event ends, we expect to see a slow transition into a neutral phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation climate pattern and eventually formation of the La Niña or the cold phase. However, in the case of this year’s extreme El Niño event, the World Meteorological Organization predicts a near 100% likelihood that El Niño will persist through February 2027. This means the concentrated heat would likely remain firmly established for the rest of this year and is expected to dominate over the winters, raising widespread concerns among scientists and the public.
Undoubtedly, while all these circumstances seem beyond our control, there can be some attempts made to mitigate their effects on everyday consumers, especially in India, where many households already struggle to meet their basic needs. The need of the hour is to develop better systems to diminish our agricultural vulnerability in the face of such ecological hurdles.
First, while the white revolution turned India into one of the largest producers of milk, little to no attention was paid to fodder development. Feed security still remains heavily dependent on the farmer’s resources and seasonal rainfall—a model that seems highly unsustainable in the current changing climate. Thus, establishing a National Fodder Security Mission, which prioritizes strengthening fodder banks, promoting drought-tolerant fodder varieties, and encouraging scientific development in fodder crops, should become a priority.
Second, we must strengthen our water management to ensure reliable agricultural production despite rainfall shocks. As per the World Bank data, only 37% of India’s agricultural land is irrigated, implying 63% of Indian farming still remains rainfed. This makes farming a ‘gamble on rain’, and years of erratic rains become years of failed crops. Our farmers cannot depend on just rain. We need drip irrigation systems that ensure limited groundwater reserves are utilized with minimal evaporative loss during prolonged monsoon breaks.
Not only this, but we must also expand into solar-powered irrigation networks, where solar panels are installed over canals to provide shade, reducing evaporation and generating clean energy at the same time. A successful case in point is the ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) solar irrigation project in West Bengal's Sundarban region which resulted in 20-30% more yield; saving of 40-60% irrigation water; 40% saving of labour and a 300% increase in the cropping intensity as compared to traditional practices.
Third, we need better investments for maintaining strategic reserves of essential food commodities, especially with the upcoming El Niño-dominated winters.
And lastly, we simply can’t have our farmers dependent mostly on traditional agriculture. India must modernize agriculture through innovations in AI, agricultural robotics, and blockchain for predictive analytics, monitoring etc, while adopting sustainable practices as mentioned above.
For too long, our food security has been at the mercy of unpredictable weather patterns. We can't just let the changing climates in the Pacific Ocean determine the fate of 600 million people in our country. Taking control of our farming infrastructure is no longer just an economic goal; it is a matter of national survival.
Written By: Sneha Srivastava Edited By: Agraj Joshi
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